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DA VINCI CODE APPEAL; COPYRIGHT AND CENSORSHIP

Reuters reports that Baigent and Leigh, authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, are appealing against Peter Smith J’s decision that the Da Vinci Code did not infringe their copyright (see IPKat blog here).

The IPKat suspects that this one is doomed to failure.Right: Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Holy Grail

No sex please - we're copyright lawyers

The Globe and Mail reports that a US federal court has found that editing sex and profanities out of films for DVD release counts as copyright infringement. According to Judge Richard P Matsch:

“Their (studios and directors) objective . . . is to stop the infringement because of its irreparable injury to the creative artistic expression in the copyrighted movies… There is a public interest in providing such protection.”

The IPKat can see why producing such ‘clean’ copies of films would be standard infringement by unauthorised reproduction but, in not recognising a fair use defence, the judge appears to have come close to recognising a de facto moral right to integrity.

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